Course Introduction - GIS for International Crises, Development and the Environment


New School for Public Engagement: International Affairs | Faculty: Stephen Metts | Email


Imgur Source: https://atlas.developmentseed.org/all/ | Connectivity Atlas


Welcome to GIS for International Crises, Development and the Environment - NINT5380.


I’m looking forward to meeting you as follows on the first day of class:

  • Date: Monday January 24, 2022
  • Time: 8:00pm - 9:50pm
  • Location: 6 East 16th Street, Room 701

Note: this first meeting and the second meeting will be conducted online - not on-campus - due to Omicron/Covid University Requirements.


Given that the Fall 2021 semester will be feature a synchronous, online lab format, make sure to review Zoom Installation and Participation Guidelines document prepared specifically for this course. Each week’s lab session will be conducted synchronously via Zoom, whereas each week’s lecture session will be on campus, in-person except for the first 2 class meetings.


During the first class lecture session, we will accomplish the following:

  • Review course organization, essential materials and objectives
  • Review basics of QGIS installation - the necessary course software
  • Preview of the core QGIS interface necessary for the Class 1 | Week 1 assignment

The first lab will begin during the second week of instruction, Tuesday Febuary 1st, 2022.

Note: Each week’s Zoom meeting credentials for the subsequent lab on Tuesday evenings will be provided to students (via CANVAS + Slack) prior to each Tuesday synchronous meeting. Make sure to keep the meeting credentials private to ensure course security.


To ensure you are ready, please review the following documents and bring any questions that you may have to the first class:


The course interface will be accessed via CANVAS, accessed from My New School. Here you will find:

  • Weekly content, data and assignments
  • In-class quizzes & labs
  • Upload location for weekly assignments
  • Weekly announcements

Weekly materials will appear generally on Mondays at 7AM, on a weekly basis.

The actual weekly content endpoints, accessed via CANVAS, are housed at GitHub which is fully accessible digitally, and can be downloaded on a weekly basis. If you would like to augment the online access for the course (available through 05/31/2021), you can easily print to PDF from the browser and save a copy of the assignment on your machine.

For course communication, we will utilize Slack. Our team name is tns-gis-spring22 and can be accessed directly:

There is also a direct invite link to the Slack workspace (please do not share publically with others outside the course) - INVITE

If you are new to Slack, there is a overview guide & a lynda.com overview course available to New School students for free as follows:

Once you have navigated to Slack and completed signup, send a hello to the class at the introductions channel. The following channels are available to the class, and each has a purpose as follows:



  • general - location to post links, references, ect. that do not fit into more narrow channels.
  • introductions - location to initialize yourself to the course Slack, and introduce yourself to the class.
  • research-readings - location for research links, papers, references on a weekly basis
  • technical-qa - where the bulk of activity will happen over the course. here is the location to post technical questions that arise during weekly assignments. This channel is monitored by instructor and TA; but students should be as active as possible here, helping fellow students solve technical issues as they arise.
  • weekly-notices - if there is an issue the needs to be addressed not tied to weekly technical issues or details in syllabus and course materials, it will be posted here.

Throughout the course, we will utilize several Google Drive features. Some of these features are not fully available through a New School email address, so you will need to have a [gmail account]((https://accounts.google.com/signup) set up for the course if you do not have one. It is perfectly fine to use a personal gmail account that you have already.

In addition CANVAS and the Slack communication for the course, materials and software will be provided to complete all technical components of the course. For technical instruction, we will utilize certain sections from the following textbook. You are welcome to purchase this textbook, but it is not required as materials necessary each week will be provided:

Further, the course will feature a theory framework in which each week’s technical work will be conducted. This component will require a textbook purchase. There are several delivery options available. The title is as follows. The purchase can be accomplished via the following share link:

Note: You are welcome to purchase the download and print versions; however, the only required purchase is the online access version priced at $29.95.

Weekly readings will be conducted within this Essentials of Geographic Information Systems textbook; most weeks will then feature a weekly quiz for each week’s theory readings in the textbook. Quizzes open each Monday, and will cover the previous week’s content. Students can take the quiz anytime on Mondays leading up to each week’s lecture session on Monday evenings.

In addition to the weekly theory and technical assignments, the course features a final project that will be built from ‘the ground up’ - from proposal, to methodology, to technical delivery. A core requirement of the final project is consistency with the course themes. An excellent overview of relevant themes can be found throughout the following book:

Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years

This is a beautiful hardback atlas-like title that is not required, but indeed recommended for inspiration and context for course final projects.


The primary course software will be QGIS. The first week’s assignment will feature downloading and installation of the software package:


Note: the most recent version of QGIS is Biatowieza 3.22. You are welcome to download this version; however, course materials are developed for the current Long Term Release Version 3.16.9 LTR. The current LTR is readily available as a core download.